Update: AMD Delays Clawhammer, Barton

Advanced Micro Devices appears to have chosen the last day of Intel’s Developer Forum to push out what some have termed the company’s “Intel-killer”, the Clawhammer processor,as well as its upcoming “Barton” core.

According to AMD’s latest processor roadmap, both the Barton and the desktop version of the Hammer chipknown as “Clawhammer”– have been pushed out by about a quarter. The date of AMD’s updated roadmap, embedded within the graphic, is Sept.12, 2002.

In an email to ExtremeTech, an AMD spokeswoman said that the changes to both the Barton roadmap and the alterations to the Clawhammer table were unrelated.

The AMD spokeswoman said that the Barton chips were delayed to allow AMD to introduce a version of the Athlon XP with a 333-MHz front-side bus, rather than the 266-MHz bus used by the current Athlon processors. AMD’s Clawhammer was pushed out for what she called normal scheduling reasons.

Clawhammer will be released to manufacturers during the first quarter of 2003, with systems due to ship during the second quarter of 2003, according to the updated roadmap; the spokeswoman said that Clawhammer shipments could still occur late in the first quarter of 2003. Previously, AMD has said that Clawhammer would “be available” in the fourth quarter of 2002. AMD has recently begun to call Clawhammer an “Athlon XP with Hammer technology”.

“Microprocessor design and delivery is a very complex process, and this schedule update (Hammer) does not reflect any significant issues with the product,” the AMD spokeswoman said. “It is simply an update on the current desktop schedule.”

From a business standpoint, the Clawhammer delays shouldn’t have a significant effect on the company. The Clawhammer, designed for high-end PCs and workstations, represented a new market. “It would be different if a version of the product was shipping now,” said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research.

Instead, the delay will push AMD’s efforts out, increasing the pressure to perform against Intel. The pushout will allow Intel to ratchet up clock speed a few more speed grades before the rollout, McCarron said.

“I guess there’s an argument to be made that if they were able to come out with Hammer, they’d have to (begin winding down) their existing product line,” McCarron said. “That’s the most positive spin. But one has to imaginge there are other things going on.”

In a research note published Friday, analyst Hans Mosesmann of Prudential Securities, San Francisco, said that “fully functional revision B silicon has started production in small volumes,” with actual chip availability due 12 to 13 weeks after that. McCarron noted that fully functional Hammer silicon has been on display at trade shows and other conventions for about six months.

“Depending on revision outcome regarding various tweaks, Hammer may indeed start ramping at the end of this year, which had been AMD’s internal goals,” Mosesmann wrote. “If it does not reach its internal goals (50%-50%), Hammer is on-track for early ’03 ramp with system availability in the March-April timeframe, which has been our expectation all along.” Mosesmann has a “buy” rating on AMD’s stock.

Barton, a desktop and mobile version of the Athlon XP with 512 Kbytes of level-2 cache, also appears to have been pushed out by a quarter, until the fourth quarter of 2002. AMD’s previous roadmap showed the Barton being introduced sometime in the second half of 2002.

The roadmap indicates when Barton will first sample. “Due to the performance gains from the 333MHz FSB enhancement, desktop AMD Athlon XP processors based on the processor core codenamed “Barton” are now planned to be available 1Q03 for both desktop and mobile,” the AMD spokeswoman said.

AMD’s Opteron processor, the version of the Hammer for servers, seems unaffected by the delays. It is still scheduled to be released in the first half of 2003, according to the AMD roadmap.

Correction: An earlier version of the story erroneously stated that AMD would release Clawhammer in the second quarter of 2002.

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